Ricky Gervais shouldn't have taken the title role

Kerry Godliman and Karl Pilkington shine in the new series however Ricky Gervais shouldn't have taken the title role.

Following last year's pilot (a pilot that should have been shot out of the sky with a shoulder-launched rocket), here's an entire series focusing on the "childlike" and "innocent" retirement-home helper, lazily played by Ricky Gervais as a hunched, gabbling gurner with a comedy combover. This week, the staff, including Derek's best friend Hannah (Kerry Godliman - much the best thing in this), confront a stuffy suit, whose swingeing budget cuts are threatening the old people's home. Oh happy day.

Video: Ricky Gervais 'Derek' interview

Ricky Gervais has hit back at his critics in an interview with Digital Spy about the first series of his Channel 4 sitcom Derek.

On Channel 4's opening night in 1982, Ian McKellen starred in Walter, a drama about a man with learning difficulties who tries to make his way in a cruel world filled with suspicion and derision. In Derek (Channel 4, Wed, 10pm), Ricky Gervais stars as a man with learning difficulties who tries to make his way in a cruel world filled with suspicion and derision. And has Karl Pilkington a best friend.

The contrast couldn't be more stark. Whereas the future knight and Lord of the Rings star simply was Walter, Derek is The Office boy with a greasy haircut, bad knitwear and facial tics. The cynical might view Derek as Gervais making a grovelling apology for 'Mong-gate' when he threw a word around on Twitter in late 2011 which attracted the ire of the Daily Mail (obviously), Susan Boyle and MENCAP. Except the writing of Derek was well under way by then ahead of its pilot episode last spring.

Like the overwhelming majority of modern comics, Gervais' heart is solidly in the right place but the brain has a tendency to force a foot deep into his mouth from time to time. Taking risks and making an inevitable mistake or ten is part of the comedian's job description. Here, though, Gervais has gone almost entirely in the opposite direction. Soundtracked by Einaudi, Derek is overstuffed with manipulative schmaltz, and so sickly-sweet that it requires you to undergo an emergency filling just by switching it on.

Shunning the pratfalls of the pilot, Derek is now a conscience-driven series in which besuited health executives visit the care home where the eponymous 49-year-old works, callously poking around to see where cuts should be made or whose jobs can be exterminated. Oddjob man Dougie (Pilkington) is one obvious candidate for the chop, while the delicate situation is not helped by the inexplicable presence of a sleazy waster Kev (David Earl). He brings a certain David Brentness to proceedings, replacing tugging on his tie with slugging on an endless stream of Special Brew while attempting to force himself onto any female (whether old, obese or other) unfortunate enough to cross his awful path.

Gervais' triumphs here are to show that the previously irritating Pilkington is actually half-a-decent actor and to write a beautiful lead role for Kerry Godliman as the stoic care home leader. Where it falls spectacularly down is through some rather lazy button-pushing (especially with the endless photo-montages of aged residents in their youthful pomp) and in Gervais' massively distracting central performance which hinders rather than helps the series. And will he ever give the mockumentary genre a break?

Ricky Gervais: Meet the cast of my new show, Derek

For me, personally, it's my favourite thing I've ever created or worked on. I love Derek more than any other character. In fact, I wish I were more like him.

Kerry Godliman: Controversy about Derek is annoying

Derek star Kerry Godliman has said criticism of the comedy show is an 'annoying distraction'.

How We Met: Karl Pilkington & Ricky Gervais

Karl Pilkington and Ricky Gervais explain how they first met. Karl says of Ricky: "Now he's my best mate, but in the early years he became obsessed with finding out where I lived."

The pilot last year may have been a bit divisive, but Channel 4 obviously liked Ricky Gervais's Derek enough to order a full series of the bittersweet retirement home comedy - we're just wondering if he can keep that face up for six whole episodes. The Office mastermind's latest project kicks off proper with sweet and simple Derek teaming up with co-workers at the home Dougie (Karl Pilkington, basically playing himself) and Hannah (Kerry Godliman) to save it from closure.

Ricky Gervais' Derek: It's such a disappointment

It doesn't succeed as a comedy and it doesn't convince as a drama; it's a shame Ricky Gervais' most personal endeavour is such a disappointment.